Drum assemblies which form a part of a carrier applicating machine are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,032,943 and 3,032,944. Such assemblies utilize jaw stations which incorporate pairs of moving jaws, with one pair to be associated with each aperture in the carrier. The jaw members of each pair are moved apart from each other as the drum rotates thereby stretching the apertures to snap over the chimes of containers. Cam followers are associated with each jaw and rotate about an axis in fixed cam tracks on either side of the work station which the containers are passed through. Certain improvements to this basic machine are also shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,816,968. This patent also shows the use of a pair of jaws to reconfigure and stretch each aperture and also uses the technique of controlling the movement of the jaws by cams on both sides of the work station. The improvement in this device is the differential movement between the innermost jaws and the outermost jaws in the jaw stations which include four moving jaws.
Other devices, such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,959,949, eliminate the necessity of a pair of jaws for each aperture but continue to utilize cam and cam followers on both sides of the drum to control linear movement of each jaw member in each set of jaws.